should be sworn to in order to assure the court that their owners were not endeavoring to evade the full payment of their share of taxation.[1] The ages of a very large division of the laborers previous to 1700 became in this way a part of the permanent records of the country. The number of young imported servants as thus disclosed is a strong indication in itself of the smallness of the number of criminals added to the population of the Colony.[2] The greatest proportion of these youths emigrated to Virginia in the company of their parents, kinsmen, or friends, or were bound out there as apprentices by their guardians or parents or the local authorities in England.[3] A considerable section were obtained by felonious means. It was no uncommon thing at this period to find men and women in the seaport towns, but especially in London and Bristol, who earned a livelihood by alluring very young persons to their houses by gifts of sweetmeats, and who cropped the hair of the victims thus secured, so as to alter their appearance beyond recognition, and then disposed of them to persons engaged in sending out laborers to the plantations.[4] Actual force and violence were probably only used in the case of children. Among the nineteen servants who were included in the list of passengers of the ship Conquer already referred to, not less than twelve were illegally detained. Robert Person, one of these
- ↑ These youths were brought into court in order that the justices might be able to form their conclusions as to the truth of the oaths, from the appearance of the youths themselves.
- ↑ At a single meeting of court held in Lancaster County, May 13, 1668, thirteen servants were adjudged to be under age. Records of Lancaster County, original vol. 1666-1680.
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1690-1694, p. 117, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Craik’s History of England, Vol. III, p. 635; see also Public Good without Private Interest, p. 5; Records of Middlesex, England, Vol. IV, p. 433.
